D&D 5E October Playtest: Yay or Nay?

[DEFCON 1]

If this packet really is as bad as some people claim... what do you think is the more likely reason?

1) Wizards of the Coast has lost their mojo and don't know what they're doing anymore.

2) Wizards of the Coast is tuning their dials by moving things from "really awesome" to "really sucks" (purposely hyperbolic on both ends on my part) so they can get a read from people of where they stand on the spectrum.

Might it be possible that the same way WotC overtuned starting HP in the first packet and then dialed thing back in subsequent packets before dialing back up again in the latest packet (thereby finding the popular/useful middle ground)... they took the "fantastic" maneuvers and specialties from the previous packet and dial these back as well to find out just how far they can/can't / should/shouldn't take all these things?

It's been said before and will be said again... if you don't realize that these packets are going to go back and forth between the greatest game on the face of the earth to the biggest pile of dung you've ever read (and every spot in between), then you are living in a fantasy world. Because this is the only way they'll really know how good something is... by putting it on a scale between two points and asking us to comment on where things went right or wrong.

 

[jeffh]

The current playtest pack makes me feel like WotC doesn't know what direction to take the game in, and in the areas I've checked carefully it seems inferior to its predecessor in most respects, and the same as its predecessor in the area where change was most needed - monster stats.

The worst point is probably the rogue. My puzzlement about what direction WotC is moving in is strongest here, I have no idea what the guiding vision behind this class is anymore; nor do I see the slightest hint of a (mechanical) reason why anyone would want to play one under these rules. Some other highlights of the areas I found disappointing include the near-total removal of at-will spells, specializations being stripped of most of their flexibility (and they have awful names now), and the unwelcome return of casters to the one (major) spell per day model at first level that, in my recollection at least, was extremely unpopular even back in the 1E days.

The worst thing about those latter points taken together is that, as far as I can tell without seeing the surveys, many of these changes were the opposite of what the feedback was asking for (though it's true that the previous rogue was too good).

Also, I couldn't switch to the new pack with the group I'm currently playtesting with even if I wanted to, which I don't, because one player's entire class went away without any obvious means of replacing it.

The best idea in the new pack is giving maneuvers to rogues as well as fighters, but they botched the implementation. Any other clear improvements are more than outweighed by the negatives.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

In answer to DEFCON's question, as to why the current playtest sucks. First off, I don't think WotC is actually that interested in fan input. This is evidenced by their tampering with polls early on, namely the poll that had what casting style people preferred. Initially, pre-tampering, Vancian casting was being walloped by AEDU and Spell Point. Then, the polls were mysteriously reset, and the outcome narrowly favored Vancian casting. Given their paradigm of Vancian Wizard or No Wizard that they held for the longest time, I think they were convinced that the polls HAD to be wrong. Only after two playtests worth of people calling them on their bullskite did they change that though, saying somewhere down the road we would see alternate magic systems as a module.

Now, I do think one major problem they face is that a lot of people use the Comments section of the surveys as a soapbox to air everything they find distasteful about the playtest, whether relavent to the survey at hand or not. I know I do, and I am willing to bet that I am not the only one. The problem this creates is multifold. Firstly, a wall of text is hard to get information from sometimes, especially if it is a rant. Second, there are 70,000 walls of text to sift through. And third, all of those walls of text could have very different wants and desires for the playtest.

So, this leads to why I think the playtest sucked. First, they get bombarded with information from the fans, both through forums and their surverys. Second, the information is likely conflicted with itself, due to several different subsets of the fandom (not necessarily separated by edition, BTW). Third, if the information conflicts with their design paradigm, they have demonstrated before that they are willing to toss it out. So essentially, they are getting a lot of information that they are perfectly willing to ignore. This is why the playtest sucked.

 

[DEFCON 1]

...a lot of people use the Comments section of the surveys as a soapbox to air everything they find distasteful about the playtest, whether relavent to the survey at hand or not. I know I do...

So basically you admit you're part of the same problem you're railing against?

No wonder they're ignoring some people's surveys.

 

[gyor]

We now know why the playtest packet was so bad. It relates to high level play.

I hope they start putting the surveys out asap so we can get a new playtest packet that fixes the glaring mistakes.

 

[gyor]

We now know why the playtest packet was so bad. It relates to high level play.

I hope they start putting the surveys out asap so we can get a new playtest packet that fixes the glaring mistakes.

 

[TerraDave]

It has an awesome version of Ilse of Dread...and they fixed the sleep spell!...

oh well.

To follow up on some of previous posts, a reaction to one set of problems can create new ones...

They felt compelled, for whatever reason, to put in an encounter based spell for wizards, then overdid trying to balance that out (and I agree, I prefer the previous approach).

They see that characters being, say, spy/wizard/illusionanist/necromancers is too much, so tone down themes/specialties...and annoy people who liked them.

They see expertise die as a success, so transport it to rogue, but have to be careful not to overshadow the fighter...

Overall, I think this is going the right direction...but yes, we need to keep giving that feedback.